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Class conflict and the state: "National Statistics has today quantified what we've always suspected - that strikes are far more common in the public sector than in the private.It estimates (pdf) that in the last 10 years, the public sector has accounted for 4.2 million of the 5.8 million working days lost through labour disputes. So, although the state represents only one-fifth of all employment, it accounts for 72.2% of strikes.There's a simple reason for this. The state is a monopoly. Monopolies, unlike competitive enterprises, don't care about annoying their 'customers' - because they've got nowhere to go. So, neither workers nor managers in the state sector have much incentive to avoid strikes. Bosses have less incentive to improve workers' morale, and workers have less incentive to co-operate with management.This just corroborates two of my priors. The state is a dysfunctional organization. And the old left were just stupid to believe state ownership would solve the problem of class conflict."